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Is Fracking America's best climate policy?www.manhattan-institute.org/issues2016

FRACKING, NOT RENEWABLES, IS REDUCING CARBON DIOXIDE

By
Angela M. Sessions
24 February, 2016

A new study by Oren Cass, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, finds despite massive subsidies and state mandates, renewable energy sources remain a small part of America’s energy supply. Investment in the industry has been flat for almost five years domestically and globally. Even as GDP grew 7.3 percent since 2007, Cass notes, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions fell 9.7 percent from their 2007 peak of 6,001 megatons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) to 5,417 MtCO2 in 2015.

Improvements in the efficiency of electricity use, the amount of electricity used per dollar of GDP, accounted for 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions reductions. The fracking revolution, resulting in a shift in electricity production from coal to natural gas, accounted for 19 percent of the decline. By contrast, increased solar power production is responsible for just 1 percent of the decline in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. For every ton of carbon dioxide cut by solar power’s substitution for coal, the switch to natural gas has removed 13 tons of carbon dioxide. Globally, the amount of carbon dioxide reduced by solar power’s expansion in the United States equaled less than four hours of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2013.

Additional Info

Angela is in charge of PR here at Pattison Sand Company. The Pattison family has more than a 60-year history of contributing to their community and providing jobs and economic stability to the people of the region.

Today, Pattison Sand Company operates in Clayton, IA about 13 miles south of Prairie du Chien, WI on the banks of the Mississippi River. We employ upwards of 300 people. Pattison leads the charge towards American Energy Independence by producing industrial sand for the natural gas and oil industries. Pattison mines this sand from the St. Peter sandstone layer in both underground and surface mines.

Americans could be forgiven for thinking fracking poses an inherent threat to groundwater.

The anti-fossil fuel “Keep It in the Ground” movement has waged a multimillion-dollar campaign to convince the public of that exact claim, even though there has never been any evidence to support the accusation.

U.S. drillers have the ability to double the country's oil production to 20 million barrels a day, but doing so too soon would tank oil prices, Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm said Thursday.

Hamm, who made his fortune by pioneering new drilling methods in North Dakota's Bakken Formation, did not offer a timeline for when this would be possible, but it would certainly be a difficult task. Surging U.S. production since 2008 was largely responsible for creating a global oversupply of oil that sent prices spiraling from more than $100 a barrel to $26 this past winter.

Hillary Clinton’s promise during a debate Sunday to aggressively regulate fracking deepens the divide between Republican and Democratic presidential candidates on oil and gas development and signifies her continued shift to the left on environmental issues.

In the Democratic presidential debate in Flint, Michigan against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton said she wouldn’t support fracking in states or local communities that don’t want it, if it causes pollution, or if the chemicals used aren’t disclosed.

"By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place," Clinton said.